Page 107 of Sidhe
As soon as they were inside, Jim released Nathan, and he felt the hold of Jim’s mojo fall away too. Nathan had it in him to bolt, but then he spotted Sasha and Alex sitting out on the flat bit of roof just outside Jim’s bedroom window.
A grin teased at the corners of Nathan’s mouth. “You guys planned this?” he asked, still grinning despite himself as he climbed out ahead of Jim onto the roof.
Sasha had a bottle of wine just like Nathan knew he would, smiling wide and scooting over so Nathan could sit beside him. Wally was snuggled in his lap. “Jim’s idea. We just really loved the sound of it. We sprung for glasses this time,” Sasha said as he poured a liberal amount of ruby-colored wine into a glass and handed it to Nathan.
Nathan took a long, pleasing gulp. “Tasty,” he hummed. “Any particular occasion?” He snuggled in close beside Sasha and looked across at where Jim and Alex snuggled in kind.
“Just a deserved break,” Jim said. “Figured we’d need it, and we can’t be sure when we’ll next get the chance.”
Nathan reached across to pet Wally in Sasha’s lap, which prompted her to ditch the redhead in favor of his lap instead. Wally had been acting much clingier toward Nathan ever since he became human again. He didn’t think she’d disliked him as an incubus, she just seemed to have understood, like all of them, that being an incubus wasn’t what Nathan needed to be at the time, and now she was letting him know how happy she was that he’d figured that out.
Looking down at the lawn of the Gatehouse, Nathan hadn’t been wrong about the need to set up tents, which now littered the whole perimeter, giving everyone a little more breathing space inside the building. Nathan saw Ula and her friends—including the disguised Puck—putting together a bonfire.
Ula spotted Nathan and the others up on the roof and waved.
Nathan waved back. He was exhausted, he could admit it, and the wine warmed his chest wonderfully. Wholly content, he threw Jim a grateful smile. “You could have just told me about the wine and good company instead of hitting me with the mojo.”
Jim’s dimples showed as he grinned. “But it was so much more fun this way.”
“Whatever, Jesse James,” Nathan mumbled into his glass.
Jim formed his hand into a gun first, but before he could ‘fire’, Nathan mirrored him and they completed the gesture together.
BANG.
“Guys,” Sasha laughed, joined by Alex’s giggles.
“I swear you two are hopeless,” she said as she laid her head on Jim’s shoulder, smiling blissfully.
Just seeing Jim and Alex like that, comfortably content like how he and Sasha were, filled Nathan with a bit of that peace he had been chasing around the Gatehouse for the past week. Nothing made him happier than seeingJimhappy.
“Anything to toast to?” Alex asked, all of them with fairly full wine glasses, night on the approach but warm with the advent of spring.
“I don’t know. Here’s to backup?” Nathan joked.
“How about…” Jim said, maybe a little somberly even, “to a happy ending?”
A happy ending. The hope for that settled around them like a warm blanket. “Yeah,” Nathan said, “I like that. To a happy ending. No matter what that means.”
He raised his glass, then Sasha, Jim, and Alex did the same, and they clinked all together before taking long, satisfying drinks.
“Now if we just knew when that damn help was coming I’d feel a whole lot more confident,” Nathan couldn’t help adding.
“Youtry gallivanting across the fae lands for weeks on end before having to trudge through supernatural static just to get here,” sounded an irritated female voice that did not belong to Alex. “Thenyou can complain,” the voice finished just as Nathan found his wine suddenly snatched from his fingers and brought to the newcomer’s lips.
“Gwen?” Nathan gaped, staring up at the rather bedraggled looking sidhe who had appeared literally out of thin air with red hair tied back into a curly mess, wearing willowy and somewhat see-through fabrics that did not fit well as modern clothing. “Where the Hell did you come from?”
Wally sat up in Nathan’s lap and chirped.
“I’d summon you another glass, dear, but I’m a bit spent,” Gwen said, thrusting the now empty glass back into Nathan’s hand. She was standing between the two couples on the roof like a windblown fairy. All she was missing were torn up butterfly wings. “Honestly,” she huffed, plopping down right where she had been standing into a cross-legged position and absentlyreaching forward to give Wally a pat, “the whole ordeal so far has been thoroughly unpleasant.”
Nathan was still gaping, all of them were, because Gwen just came across so strangelyhuman, and of course Alex hadn’t had the pleasure last time of meeting her.
“So…” Nathan said, “should I take that to mean the light faearen’tcoming? Or did you just come from a really bitching party before popping in?”
Almost on cue, Nathan felt Sasha’s hand squeeze his bicep hard in warning. The incubus then spoke to Gwen in Gaelic with reverent concern. Nathan caught something about ‘exhausted’ and his name, and figured Sasha was making excuses for him.
A true smile wormed its way onto Gwen’s face. “Please, dear, no need for such formality, much as it honors me.” She waved a hand, kicking her legs out in front of her, and leaning back on her palms. Wally scurried onto her lap. “I’m quite alright, just winded. And not to worry, Nathan, my brethren may be stubborn, but many are more than willing to take their place among those who will help save the world.
